Most content plans start with the wrong question.
Somebody sits down and asks “what should we write about?” and the answer is whatever occurs to them that morning. A bit about a recent job, something seasonal, a thing a competitor posted that looked good. Six months later there are fourteen unrelated posts and no discernible reason for any of them.
That is not a plan. It is a pile.
The alternative is to start at the other end. Decide where you want to be in three years, work out what would have to be true for that to happen, and let the content plan fall out of it.
That sounds grander than it is. Here is the whole thing, in about an hour.
Exercise one: write the three-year position
Time: 20 minutes, and take it seriously.
Write down where you want the business to be in three years. One paragraph.
The rule: it has to be specific enough to be wrong.
“Bigger and more profitable” is not a position. Nobody plans to be smaller. It gives you nothing to work backwards from.
These are positions:
- “The first name people think of for bathroom renovations in Lytham and St Annes, working on four projects at a time at a higher price point than I charge now.”
- “Doing mostly commercial electrical work for holiday lets and small hotels along the coast, with domestic as a sideline rather than the main thing.”
- “Known specifically for period property work, taking on the jobs other builders turn down because they involve original features.”
Notice what those have in common. Each one names what you want to be known for, who for, and where. That is the useful shape.
The test: could somebody read your paragraph and immediately name two things you would say no to? If not, it is not specific enough. Positions are defined by exclusions as much as inclusions.
Exercise two: what would have to be true?
Time: 15 minutes.
Now the key question, and it is the one that does the work:
For that position to be real in three years, what would have to be true?
Write the list. It usually looks something like:
- People searching for that specific thing would find me
- I would have visible evidence I do that kind of work
- I would be able to charge more, which means I would need reasons why
- Somebody looking for the cheap version would self-select out before ringing
- The right sort of customer would recognise themselves in what I publish
Notice that almost every item on that list is an information problem.
Not a skill problem. Not a capacity problem. A problem of what exists in writing about you, and where.
That is why this exercise leads to a content plan rather than a business plan. Most positioning shifts are, at bottom, a change in what you are publicly known for.
Exercise three: turn it into territories
Time: 20 minutes.
Now the mechanical bit. Take your position and break it into three to five subject territories you would need to own.
A territory is not a blog post. It is an area you intend to be the obvious authority on locally.
For the period property builder, the territories might be:
- Working with original features (sash windows, lime plaster, original floors)
- What goes wrong when period properties are modernised badly
- Costs and timescales specific to older buildings
- Permissions, conservation areas, listed building rules
- Choosing a builder who actually understands old houses
Under each territory sit somewhere between five and fifteen individual pieces. That is your next two years of writing, and every single item on it does a job.
The discipline: if a piece does not sit inside a territory, do not write it. That is the whole point. The territories are how you stop the pile forming.
And be narrower than feels comfortable. Depth beats breadth here, both for humans and for machines. Being unmistakably the person for one thing is worth far more than being vaguely present across nine.
Exercise four: sequence it
Time: 10 minutes.
Not everything at once. Pick the order.
Three sensible ways to choose what goes first:
Nearest to money. Which territory contains the questions people ask right before they hire someone? Start there. Pricing, choosing a supplier, is-this-worth-doing. Those convert soonest.
Widest gap. Which territory is nobody else covering locally? Easiest ground to take.
What you actually know best. Which one could you write about tomorrow without research? Start where the writing is easy or it will not happen.
I would normally do nearest-to-money first, then widest gap.
Exercise five: the honest capacity check
Time: 5 minutes, and this is the one people skip.
How many pieces can you genuinely produce or commission per month? Be pessimistic. Whatever number you first thought of, halve it.
Now do the arithmetic. Five territories at ten pieces each is fifty pieces. At one a month that is over four years, which means your three-year plan does not fit in three years.
So either the capacity goes up, or the territories come down. Three territories done properly beats five done thinly, every time, and it is not close.
This is the exercise that turns an ambitious plan into one that actually happens.
Some prompts to help
Once you have your position written, AI is genuinely useful for the middle bit. A few worth running.
To pressure-test the position:
“Here is where I want my business to be in three years: [paste it]. What would have to be true for that to happen? What am I likely to be underestimating?”
To generate territories:
“I am a [trade] in [town] and I want to be known specifically for [your position]. What subject areas would I need to be the obvious local authority on? Give me four or five territories, not a list of blog titles.”
To fill a territory:
“For the territory of [X], list the questions a customer would actually ask, in their own words, in the weeks before hiring somebody. Include the awkward ones about cost and the ones they would be embarrassed to ask.”
And the useful reality check:
“Here is my current website content: [list your pages]. Here is where I want to be in three years: [paste]. What is the gap?”
That last one is often sobering, in a productive way.
Why this beats a normal content plan
Three reasons.
It gives you a reason to say no. Most content plans fail because everything sounds vaguely worth doing. Territories give you a test.
It compounds. Fifteen pieces scattered across nine subjects builds nothing. Fifteen pieces inside one territory makes you the obvious answer in that territory, both to a person browsing and to a machine deciding who to recommend.
And it changes who rings you. This is the part people miss. Publishing consistently about period property work does not just attract more customers, it attracts different ones, and it quietly puts off the ones you did not want. That is the mechanism by which a position becomes real.
The catch
You have to actually stick to it, which is harder than writing it.
There will be a month where something topical comes up and it does not fit any territory, and you will want to write it anyway. Sometimes that is fine. Mostly it is the pile forming again.
Three years is long enough that consistency matters more than brilliance. The businesses that get somewhere are rarely the ones with the best individual posts. They are the ones still writing about the same thing in year three, by which point nobody can catch them.
Want help working out your position and what it would take? Get your free audit, or email hello@inkon.co.uk. I read every message myself.